Earlier today, a new album from the disgraced R&B singer R. Kelly hit streaming services including Apple Music and Spotify. The release of the album, titled “I Did It” follows after a long string of legal battles faced by the artist, recently resulting in the singer being convicted for 30 years in prison for charges relating to child pornography, sexual assault, sex trafficking and racketeering.
The album’s release has raised a long string of questions about how the album was created and released while Kelly is imprisoned, why streaming services allowed the album to be published, why Kelly would decide to release such a project in the midst of ongoing legal battles, and whether his record label was involved with the project.
While the album’s credits list Sony’s Legacy Recordings as being behind the new album, Legacy Recordings have denied any involvement in the album, according to Stereogum. R. Kelly’s legal team has also noted that they intend to investigate to find out who released the album. TMZ has suggested that the album was released by Ingrooves, a subsidiary of Universal Music Group, which is not tied to Sony.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has also confirmed that R. Kelly was not able to make any songs using the equipment inside prison. Thus, any music Kelly made would have to have been recorded before the singer was incarcerated.
According to a soundbite from the artist shared by TMZ, R. Kelly himself has denied that he created the album at all, claiming that it was someone else’s voice on the record. The singer scoffs at the idea that he would release a project titled “I Did It” in the middle of attempts to appeal his federal convictions. He hopes that “people recognized my voice and know that” he wouldn’t be recording any music in the middle of a legal battle.
Kelly suggests that the person who released the album is making money from it, and that the album was intended to harm his chances of a successful appeal. He goes on to sing a few lines from his own songs, seemingly attempting to convince people that his voice is different from the voice on the album.
Throughout social media, most of the album’s attention related to the track “I Admit It Pt. 2,” wherein the singer, who may or may not be R. Kelly, sings “I admit I fuck with all the ladies/That’s older and younger ladies/But tell me how they call it pedophile because of that, shit that’s crazy,” going on to sing that he is losing his freedom and career “because your opinions.”
While the project’s title track has gotten most of the buzz from the nearly 50 minute album, the situation is made stranger by the fact that the title track seems to have been released four years prior to the album, with a YouTube channel uploading all 3 parts of the title track in 2018. Whether all of the recordings on the album were created years prior to R. Kelly’s recent incarceration is unknown.
The album has been pulled from all streaming services, including Spotify and Apple Music. Some small YouTube channels unaffiliated with the artist have posted songs from the album to their pages, likely to be removed by the website soon. R. Kelly’s official YouTube channels were banned from the website in October.
The denial of Kelly and his record label of being involved in the album’s production and release only add to the mystery of how the album was dropped. Whose voice is on the album? Who allowed the album to be released? As of now, there are no satisfying answers.
Last month, R. Kelly’s manager Donnell Russell was sentenced to 20 months in prison after harassing one of Kelly’s victims.
Leave a Comment